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of the need to protect a vast area of about 54,000 marine hectares, considered of particular
importance for the marine ecosystem. Secondly, the two tonnare of the Egadi Islands were

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historically the most productive not only in Sicily but, as government data show from the
second half of the 1800’s, in all of Italy. Further still, the Favignana tonnara was the largest

tonnara in Italy and represented, up until the 1960’s, the most advanced canning industry for

the conservation of tuna as well. Finally, the natural beauty of the islands exalts and
amplifies the potential value of the museum project for the local economy since a restored

and renovated Stabilimento Florio, serving as both a congress centre and museum, would
attract a great deal of scientific and conference tourism activity. The Stabilimento, therefore,

has all the characteristics and prerequisites to become the historic memory of a fundamental
piece of Sicily’s preindustrial material culture and of its centuries-old tuna fishing economy.

This identarian value which I’ve hinted at obviously does not belong exclusively to

the tonnara and does not derive only from its functional specificity and construction
typologies. Other examples of Sicily’s rich identarian legacy include the network of the agro-

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pastoral homesteads in what were once the huge Roman latifondi and the feudal estates of
Sicily, the ancient windmills of the saltworks that typify the south-western coast of the
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Island (from Trapani to Marsala), and the sulphur mines in the province of Agrigento,
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Caltanissetta and Palermo. There are many different ways of interpreting the innumerable
identarian elements present in the Sicilian landscape, but any interpretive coherency will be

tied to the possibility of collecting ample data and information destined for an archival,
bibliographic, iconographic and audio repertory able to confer depth to the reconstruction

and make the recuperation of memory possible.

From this point of view, the history and the economy of tuna fishing, more than any
other activity, have perhaps the greatest amount of available documentary evidence. The

sources include accountant registers, diaries of the raisi (indisputable leader of the tonnara
workers on land and sea), and notary contracts that regulated individual and collective

relations. There are also fiscal records and reports compiled by experts and technicians as
well as legal documents recording disputes between owners and managers of the tonnare

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quarrelling over territorial fishing rights. Whereas the archives of numerous 19 century

17 P. Pavesi, “Relazione alla Commissione Reale per le Tonnare”, cit., pp. 101-109.
18 G. Valussi, La casa rurale nella Sicilia occidentale, L. Olschki, Firenze, 1968; B. Spano, “La casa del latifondo
centro-meridionale”, in Case contadine, Touring Club Italiano, Milano, 1979, pp. 164-197.
19 G. Mondini, Le saline della provincia di Trapani, Trapani, 1881; G. Bufalino, Saline di Sicilia, Sellerio, Palermo,
1988; S. Costanza, Tra Sicilia e Africa. Trapani. Storia di una città mediterranea, Corrao, Trapani, 2005.
20 S. Addamo, Zolfare di Sicilia, Sellerio, Palermo, 1989; G. Barone – C. Torrisi (edited by), Economia e società
nell’area dello zolfo, S. Sciascia, Caltanissetta-Roma, 1989.

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